RFM posts 142% profit jump in second quarter

MANILA, Philippines - RFM Corp., a food and beverage conglomerate owned by the Concepcion-Araneta family, reported a 142 percent jump in its net profit for the second quarter of the year to P154.2 million on robust sales and lower costs.

In a statement, RFM said the second quarter profit is a complete turnaround from  the P19.6 million loss incurred during the first quarter of this year.

In the first half of this year, RFM’s net earnings reached P134.5 million, slightly up from P132.6 million the same period a year earlier. Sales rose 22 percent to P3.85 billion.

RFM president and chief executive officer Joey Concepcion said he expects the company to sustain its strong performance for the rest of the year given softening raw material prices.

Concepcion also expressed confidence that sales would continue to grow ahead of the industry  despite a weakening consumer spending as the company “leads the way in offering higher value-for-money food and beverage alternatives to the consumer.”

He said Fiesta spaghetti is now No. 1 in the market because of its strong value pro-position to Filipino consumers and is now the company’s second market leader after the Selectra brand, which has been dominating the Philippine ice cream market with a 54 percent market share.

Concepcion noted that Swift meat and Selecta milk products have also registered high double-digit sales growth with stronger consumer pull and deeper distribution penetration.

He also  expressed optimism in the growth performance of Vitwater, or water with vitamins and benefits, which was recently launched as a first-mover in the vitamin-enriched water category, and endorsed by people’s champ Manny Pacquiao.